Well, I got lucky this year and I finally drew a buck tag for my area after 6 years of no luck in the statewide lottery! Its kind of ironic because I was holding out for a general area tag so that I could hunt wherever I want in my area, when I could have gotten a landowner tag every year but only be able to hunt my own property. I ended up spending the entire 16 days hunting strictly on my own property anyway because that's where the area monster had been sighted earlier! I have a bunch of does that inhabit a certain area on my farm, and they are always there. I decided to just wait it out and hopefully the big boy himself would show up to visit a few of the girls? My hopes were dashed after about a week into the season, as my neighbor was lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time. He bagged the biggest whitetail buck that has ever been seen in this county in all of my 69 years!(first picture below) I just about gave up because I was so disappointed but something told me to keep going and finish out the season because one never knows what might show up at any given time! It was down to the last day and I had been sitting in the same place every day and decided to go there again. I was about 2 hours into it, with only about another 90 minutes of season left when this nice 5 by 4 stood up and stretched, at about 100 yards! I had to give it a few minutes to be sure he was big enough, but when he turned and faced me, I was positive that he was wide enough and tall enough for me to harvest. One shot at 100 yards with the 7MM mag and the season was over for 2017.(2nd picture below)I think I will build a tree stand in that spot next year and just apply for a landowner tag. I'm getting too old to be traveling all around the area anyway. Besides, it will be nice to get out of the wind to watch for the "Big One". I'm sure there are more this size around with the genetics we have and the excellent food source. Maybe next year I can outdo my neighbor! LOL

Mine only weighed 175 dressed out and I don't know what the neighbors deer weighed. The rack on my neighbors buck was rough scored at 194 and mine has not been measured yet, but I did measure the width inside and it was at 20 inches.

Wow! great story Kevin. To me, a big whitetail buck is one of the most elusive, wary, sneaky game animals to get. They very rarely let their guard down, and it takes a female to get them to do it. We had a couple BIG ones here about 20 years ago, one was a perfectly symmetrical 7 x 7, the width was twice the width of his ears, and tall. His runnin buddy was a 6 x 6 that would drop your jaw. For 2 summers I would watch their antlers get bigger, then during hunting season they would vanish, only to reappear in December. Never found their sheds, never heard of anyone bagging them, then never saw them again after the deep snows of the winter of 96. Congrats to both of you!